Dude, Where’s My Life?

The following is from John Ortberg’s book, When the Game Is Over It All Goes Back in the Box:

Once upon a time in Silicon Valley there lived a busy, important man. He routinely logged twelve to fourteen-hour days at his job and sometimes on weekends. Even when he was not working, his mind drifted toward his work so that it was not only his occupation but also his preoccupation. He found the forty-hour work week such a good idea he would often do it twice a week.

His wife tried to slow him down, to remind him that he had a family. He knew that they were not as close as they once had been. He had not intended to drift away. It’s just that she always seemed to want time from him, and that is what he did not have to give. He gave at the office.

He was vaguely aware that his kids were growing up and he was missing it. From time to time his children would complain about books that he wasn’t reading to them, games of catch he wasn’t playing with them, lunches he wasn’t eating with them. But after a while they stopped complaining, because they stopped expecting that their lives might ever be different.

I’ll be more available to them in six months or so, he said to himself when things settle down. And though he was a very bright guy, he didn’t seem to notice that things never settled down. Besides, he said to himself when he felt guilty, I’m doing it all for them. Of course this wasn’t even partly true. He would have lived this way if they didn’t exist at all. He lived this way even though they begged him to change. But because they didn’t move out to live in a cardboard box, because they lived in the home and ate the food and wore the clothes and played the video games that his money provided, he could say to himself, I’m doing it all for them. And no one knew him or loved him enough to tell him the truth.

He knew that he was not taking great care of his body. His doctor told him he had some pretty serious warning signs – elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol – and told him he needed to cut down on the Twinkies and red meat and start an exercise program. So he stopped going to see his doctor. There will be plenty of time for that, he said to himself, when things settle down.

Well, one day the CEO of the company came to him and announced with great excitement an emerging opportunity that would absolutely guarantee the company long-term brilliance, but it would require even longer hours on his part. He went home and told his wife that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for. After this they would be set for life. Things would settle down. We can finally go on the vacation you’ve been pestering me about. But his wife had heard this sort of thing before and had learned not to get her hopes up. At 11:00 she went up to bed by herself – as usual.

He was a man in control of his environment. But there was one microscopic detail that escaped his attention. An artery that had once been as supple as a blade of grass was now as dry as plaster and as stiff as old cement. Every day, every cigar, every pat of butter, every angry word and every tension-filled drive had done its work. Quietly, efficiently, irresistibly, his body was preparing to do him in. For more than half a century his heart had been pumping 70 millileters of blood with every contraction, 14,000 pints a day, 100,000 beats every 24 hours – all without ever sending a memo or giving it a performance review. Now it skipped a beat. Then another. And a third. He gasped for air and clutched his chest. For a moment he was given the gift of blinding clarity. Even though he sat at the top of a hundred organizational charts, it turns out he wasn’t even in control of his own pulse.

His death was a major story in the financial community. His obituary was written up in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. It’s too bad he was dead, because he would have loved to read what they wrote about him.

Then came the memorial service. Because of his prominence, the whole community turned out. People filed past his casket and made the same foolish comment people always make at funerals: “He looks so peaceful.” Rigor mortis will do that. Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down. They ask the same foolish question people ask when somebody rich dies: “I wonder how much he left?” He left it all. Everybody always leaves it all.


I thought that extended story was worth hearing. We are not as in control as we think we are. And the harder we try to control things the easier our lives slip away from us.

At home we have a new favorite show we watch called Nanny 911. The premise is that these English Nannies are called into American families in crisis to help them learn how to be a functional family again. There are beastly children and overwrought mothers and clueless dads – a real circus. It’s fascinating viewing. I guarantee you you’ll feel better about your family after watching the families on this show. One recent episode showed a father who had no positive relationship with his young son using taunting as a form of discipline. He took all his sons toys away and the son screamed, “GIVE ME MY TOYS BACK!” Dad responded with, “GIVE ME MY LIFE BACK!”

That told me all I needed to know about dad. He felt like he was no longer in control of his life. These annoying kids and wife were taking away from his precious time. They were a burden to him.

It reminded me of a similar scene from the movie Parenthood where the dad, played by Steve Martin, is under similar stress. He can’t control things at work. He can’t control things at home. Nothing is going according to plan. He cries out in frustration,

“My whole life is have to!”
Maybe you have felt this way too at times. Life keeps giving you more and more pressure and “have to” kind of things.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus never talked about life this way. Oh, he talked about obeying the Father in everything, but it never sounded like a burden, a have to. It always sounded like something he wanted to do. Even in his death he didn’t change his view much.

Think about that, the view from the Cross – nothing could bring greater clarity about your life. Even the two thieves beside him seemed to get that clarity in one way or another. But even that cruel death was not a have to. Jesus insisted, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down.”

That’s the way of the Cross. If you want to know how to have life, give it away. It’s the opposite of our control-obsessed, selfish selves. Give your life away and it will come back to you.

“If any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16.24-25

Jesus invites us all to take a look at life with the view from the Cross. It’s really the only way to see with clarity.

I think maybe people hear that invitation to take up the Cross and something in them feels like they’re going to have their lives taken away. You know, they’re going to lose something. What you lose won’t compare to what you gain in the end.

Jesus isn’t trying to trick us.

“I have come so that you may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10.10

Jesus wants to give us our lives back from the selfishness and the darkness that has taken over.

I was listening to a song by James Taylor this week, and part of it goes like this:

You can’t get no light from a dollar bill
Don’t get no light from a tv screen
When I open my eyes I want to drink my fill
From the well on the hill
Do you know what I mean?


What good is it to suck up everything this world has to offer and lose your life in the process? Do you know what I mean?